The Things He Doesn't Know
by Twissie
Summary: I really think this could have happened... *UPDATED.. rest of the story up!*
1. chapter1

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story. It all belongs to Mr Baz Luhrmann and everyone else involved in making the wonderful movie about the Moulin Rouge. I would like to apologise for any grammar and spelling mistakes… just be gentle **lol**

He doesn't know that I'm standing here. He is writing. I've never seen anyone so devoted to his work. He is crying, I can hear it clearly… That is my wake up call. I have to come clean. The poor penniless sitar player deserves to know the truth about the once sparkling diamond. His fingers know exactly where to go. They are going in a steady pace, but now they are slowing down. He stops, looks out the window at my old work place, puts his head in his hands… How could little old me have caused such a destruction? The first time I saw him HE was the sparkling diamond. He was fresh and new… He starts typing again… But now he reads the words out loud as he types them. 

"And then on a not so special day I sat down and wrote our story. A story about a time… a story about a place… a story about love… a love that will live forever… The end" He stopped. A lump developed in my throat. I can't cry now. I have to stay strong. He thinks I'm a bitch and I probably am… and he should think that way when I reveal the truth. I can't keep it back anymore. I take a step towards him. I try not to make any noise, but as I sweep past an empty bottle of absinthe lying on the floor it starts to roll. The sound cuts through the air. It has been so silent for so long. Christian jumps, his head turns fast. His beautiful blue/grey eyes are all red and sore. His cheeks wet. He looks shocked and angry. 

"Nini! What are you doing here?! Can't you see I'm busy?! Don't you have ANY respect?!" He is yelling. Bursting towards me. Clenching my wrists and holding me up against the wall. I'm scared. I've never seen this side of a person before. It's like he is possessed. 

"Oh Shakespeare… I thought you would like some company…" DAMN! Why did I always have to screw things up? I hate what I've become. The accent (If I can call it an accent) isn't even mine, it just comes out. Why can't I just speak from the heart? He throws me out the door. He doesn't say anything, he just looks at me. I want to say something, something human, something sympathetic… 

"Toulouse is dead"… Close enough. I turn around and walk out of the building. I can still feel Christian's glance in the back of my head as I stand out on the street staring up at the red windmill. My thoughts drift to the first time I lay eyes on it. They drift to the time before I was known as Nini-Pattes-En-L'air. I've never revealed my real name to anyone I met at the Moulin Rouge. Nanette… That's my real name. Now that I don't dance anymore I should brush the dust of it and use it more often. 

"Wait! Stay right there!" I twirled around. Christian shouted down to me. I could see him grab his hat and run towards the door of his room. A few seconds later he stood out on the street with me. God… Now I have to behave… I want to tell him the truth.

"Christian" "Nini" we say at the same time. I blush and for the first time in a long while I can see a smile on his face, It's not a big smile, but it's a smile. 

"You realise that Nini isn't my real name?" I say… Good… just something to brake the ice. 

"Well of course. I didn't think your last name was legs in air either… hehe" Wow… a brave attempt to make a joke. I smile back at him. 

"Yeah… I keep forgetting how smart you are. I'm Nanette" Not too bad. At least I didn't stamp all over his feelings. 

"Well uhm… Nanette I just… I thought…" He was stuttering. 

"What's wrong?" 

"Well, I got the impression that you came to talk to me about something. And I got a hunch that it wasn't about Toulouse…" He stared down at his feet. 

"Why did you come to that solution?" I don't feel like telling him right here and now so I'm going to stick to my story about coming to him to inform him about Toulouse. 

"Well. You and Toulouse were good friends, and I don't think that you would wear that dress to tell someone the tragic news" Damn… I keep forgetting that he is the master of lies here. I look down at my dress. It's bright yellow with quite a plunging neckline. 

"Okey you are right. I didn't want to talk about Toulouse… I actually got some information about Satine that I thought you should know" Wow… Didn't that come out a bit too fast? 

"Uhm… But I don't want to talk about it standing here in the middle of the street. So… Nevermind" I turn on the spot and walk away from him. He stands there shocked. He shouts something to me, but I'm not listening. I have to talk to the doctor. The doctor can tell Christian what happened. Yeah… that's a good plan. The best I've had for a while.

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"You have to promise me that you will be gentle with him. Try to avoid mentioning the parts where I'm involved" I have to talk fast. I can't stand his face. You get that feeling after you unwillingly have to make love to someone. He didn't rape me, but it was just something I had to do. 

"Remember, just be professional, be a doctor. That's what you do best after all" Gah those eyes. They keep drifting away from my face and down on my body all the time. I can't stay here anymore. I have to go back to my fiancé. 

"But miss… You are very involved in all of this. I can't tell him the truth without mentioning you" That little old bastard. If he thinks that will get me to bed, then he better think again. I just roll my eyes and walk out. I have better things to do, I'm praying he won't tell on me too bad.

I'm standing outside the door of my new home. It's located just outside of Montmartre. I'm scared now that James will og all nasty on me and ask me a hundred questions about where I've been and what I've done. But I can't tell him anything. 

"Where have you been my dear?" The sound of his voice makes my whole body twitch. 

"Oh I've just been down at the Moulin Rouge informing old friends about our loss" I'm hoping he will fall for it. After all James is very gullible. 

"Loss? What loss?" I stand there gaping for a little while. I recollect myself and reply as firm as I can. 

"Toulouse is dead James. I've lost a good friend. I want other people who know him to know too" He snurps up his mouth and goes back to reading something. It looks like a letter. But I'm not interested.

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Now guys… what do you think? Don't worry the rest of the story will come soon. I've got the whole plot written down, I just have to fill in the blanks and polish the story a bit. I would really like to know what you think about this beginning. Is it interesting? Is it different from other Nini fics? (I've only read one.. and this is very different from the one I read)… 


	2. chapter2

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Okey guys.. here is the rest of the story! Enjoy…

All I can think about is the doctor and what he is going to tell Christian. I guess I'm scared. Kind of funny really… I didn't know that I could feel fear. But I can remember the last time I felt scared and out of place. That was the first time I placed my feet in Montmartre. God was I ever scared. No money, no friends, no place to live… Just four things to believe in and happy thoughts. Truth, beauty, freedom, love. No one believed in this more than the first person I met in this bohemian paradise. Satie. He was kind of eccentric I guess, but he was friendly.

"Sneaky… really sneaky" My skin curls up. James' voice has such a special tone… Why is this happening to me?

"What is sneaky?" I ask my future husband.

"This writer. Hmm. He does have talent… Ah well. Too bad he didn't make anything out of it" He slurps his tea and got a satisfied expression on his face. I didn't reply. So he was reading something Christian wrote for "Spectacular Spectacular". It's been a year but I don't think anyone involved will ever forget the ending. I guess no one won. But it shouldn't have ended the way it did. And I could have stopped it all… I hate myself. And no one knows. Oh no, the doctor… I have to follow him… I have to know what he is going to tell Christian.

I feel really stupid spying on another person like this, but I have to know. The doctor looks really nervous, or maybe that is my own feelings. I can't really tell anymore… I just feel numb all over. The doctor raises his arm and knocks on Christian's door. It opens and the doctor disappears through it. I hurry up and place myself right outside the door. I hate to do this. I feel like I'' ten years old again eavesdropping on my sister, but no… This is now and much more important.

"Doctor what are you doing here?" I can hear confusion and irritation in Christian's voice.

"I'm here to tell you something…" The Doctor IS nervous…

"Well you are not the first one to say that to me today, and if you are going to walk away before finishing your story then I'm not sure what I'm going to do" I feel a sting in my heart… I'm still the one causing the pain.

"Well… Uhm… I won't walk away. But this could be hard to listen to so I recommend that you sit down. Okey…Now…Good. Uhm… I don't know what to say, or how to put this gently…" Oh no… Oh my God he is just going to blurt it out… I have to run away, no I have to stay. I did something wrong, I should face the consequence. 

"…Satine didn't die of consumption… She got killed" Dead silence… That's not good. He didn't mention me though.

"Killed?… Killed! What do you mean killed? You diagnosed her!" I can't hold back the tears anymore.

"Uhm… Yes… But someone… Uhm… Like I said, this isn't easy…"

"Get out…" Wow… I've never heard Christian angry, well I have but not like this. Someone is moving fast towards the door, no time to react. BLAM. The door hit me straight in the face. 

"Ni… Nanette! What are you doing here? Oh I see… Making someone else tell me what you knew? Huh? Come on… TELL ME THE TRUTH!" In the corner of my eye I could see the doctor sneaking away.

"Ah… heh… The truth. Sure you can handle the truth Christian?" Okey… This is it. All or nothing. Og for it Nanette!

"He is marrying me!" WHAT? What in the world was that? No… no that's not what I meant to say.

"Who is? The doctor… I don't see why…" I hold up my hand and show him my huge diamond ring… I can see that he understand.

"The Duke… You are marrying the Duke… So why did he kill her?" His look is dead serious, but I feel like laughing. James kill someone? I think not.

"I killed her." Whoops… Now that should have stayed inside my head. His reaction on the other hand isn't quite what I thought it would be… He is smiling… I'm very confused.

"Nanette… I admit… I don't like you very much… But you don't have to make it worse by making up these stories to make me feel better." He held my face. My heart pounds wildly… I was so jealous… Now he is touching me… ME. But still I have to tell my loved one the truth. After all, that's two of the things I believe in above all. Truth and love. 

"Satine died of consumption, let her rest in peace." He continues. Shall I leave it to this or really brake his heart? Oh for once let the old Nini shine through.

"Christian. I believe in four things… Truth, beauty, freedom and love. I'm trying to live by those things, but my freedom has been taken away from me, my beauty is fading away and the person I love will never love me… please… let me tell you the truth…" I feel my face going red. But I think my little speech won him over. He is listening now. Okey, now I just have to tell him.

"Satine always got all the glitter. She got the best men, the best costumes… stupid I know, but I was so jealous. This is a kind of complicated story and I don't expect you to understand everything. But I'm of to spend the rest of my life with James and… uhm… So I want to come clean with this before… uhm… Well I just want you to know the truth." He leads me into his room. We sit down. I stare him in the face and start talking.

"Satine had fainted a couple of times on stage even before you came to the Moulin Rouge. The first times it really was because of her outrages costumes… but I wanted her shine, so I switched the morphine with poison, which I had gotten from Toulouse… well… It wasn't exactly poison… but deadly if you drink large amounts of it. It was something Toulouse used in his paint. I watched her get worse… I was having a good time… I never thought she was going to die from it… But even so, I switched the bottles back, so that she got morphine again. But then you and James walked into the club and again little miss perfect got to choose first. When she fainted that evening on stage during her solo act. I switched the bottles again and so she got more and more of the poison, and I didn't switch them back after that night. It was easy to get the doctor to lie. Let's just say I gave him a couple of nights he'll never forget… But as you can see… No one won. Not you, not the Duke and not me. But now a load is lifted of my shoulders… I'm sorry Christian, but that is what really happened." There… Now it's over and done.

"Are you being serious… This can't be true, why… Nanette… If you loved James that much when he was hurting Satine, why didn't you tell him…? Maybe everything could have worked out…" I start to cry… He is still blind. I'm still just a whore to him, I'm nothing special… I'm a back stabbing bitch.

"I don't love him Christian…I love you…" This was too much for Christian to take… He runs out the door. I'll never see him again. Because my story ends here. A perfect solution… I'll kill myself. I find a blank sheet of paper. My mind searching for words. I'm no poet, and the only thing that pops into my mind is a silly poem I wrote the first day I came here. I insert the paper into the typewriter. I use a very long time to locate the letters, but I write down my little poem:

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It's a perfect day and it's a perfect world,

no reason to be sad 'cause I'm a perfect girl,

yeah it's a perfect day and it's a perfect life,

soon I'll be the handsome hero's perfect wife

'cause I'm a perfect girl

in a perfect world

My mind is blank. I walk out onto the ledge outside Christian's window. I smile when I jump, at least he knows the truth now. I'll never see him again… But my world was a perfect one when he walked into it… The ground is coming close now. I guess this is good bye… ------------------

THE END


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